Judith S. Beck - The Beck Diet Solution Weight Loss Workbook: The 6-Week Plan to Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person (eBook Original)

To my family and Naomi

T he Beck Diet Solution is a six-week program that teaches you a different psychological skill every day to help you achieve your weight-loss goals. Both the original book, The Beck Diet Solution, and this workbook are different from any other diet-related books youve ever read. For starters, they dont include a diet plan! Also, they dont tell you what to eat or even when to eat. Instead, the Beck Diet Solution program teaches you all of the skills you need to be able to stick to any nutritious diet of your choice, to lose excess weight, and to keep it off for your lifetime.

These skills are based on the principles of Cognitive Therapy, which is one of the most commonand powerfulpsychotherapies practiced worldwide today. Demonstrated in hundreds of research studies to be effective in the treatment of a variety of psychological problems, Cognitive Therapy focuses on helping you change your thinking so that you can maintain lifelong changes in your behavior.

Why havent you been successful with dieting in the past? If youre like most people, you think that the only preparation you need to do is to pick a diet planand youre ready to get started. And, actually, dieting can be pretty easy at first. Youre highly motivated, and you can temporarily make changes in your eating habits to lose weight without much trouble. A week or two goes by, and you feel successful and in control. Youre losing weight. Youre happy.

But youve been fooled.

Because the first few days or weeks of your diet are relatively easy, you naturally think that eating less, resisting cravings, and handling hunger will always be easy. Wrong! Sooner or later, its going to become more difficult for you to stick to your plan and to say no to some of your favorite foods. Youll have a sabotaging thought, such as, Its okay if I eat this food [that Im not supposed to eat] because.... (You can fill in the blank with dozens of excuses.) Then what happens? You give in, and before you know it, youve gained back the excess weight you lost. But it doesnt have to be that way! This workbook teaches you exactly what to say to yourself and exactly what to do to get back on track immediately.

Talking back to sabotaging thoughts is essential to weight-loss success. You will most likely have lots of these thoughts on the way to achieving your goal. For example, figure out what youre thinking as you read this list of important features of the Beck Diet Solution program:

Pick a nutritious diet and a reasonable exercise program.

Plan and monitor in writing what you eat.

Use good eating habits so that you really notice and enjoy every bite.

Solve diet- and exercise-related problems.

Transition to rest-of-your-life eating and exercising.

Do you have such thoughts as, I dont want to do that, or, I dont have to do that? Its exactly these kinds of thoughts that you will learn how to effectively respond to so that youll be motivated to do whats needed to lose weight and to keep it off.

Ill bet that no one ever taught you how to do all these things. Its not surprising that dieting has been difficult for you. You didnt have all these essential skills!

If youre still not convinced that you need skills to lose weight and not just a diet plan, the following analogy may help: Lets say youve decided to take up tennis. You cant expect to just pick up a racket and win a game. You need a coach, someone to teach you exactly what to do. Having the right mindset is also important. You have to recognize that it takes time, energy, and effort to perfect your tennis skills. You have to practice them over and overand, in time, tennis will get easier and easier. But you still cant expect to win every game. Even if youre a good player, there will be days when you make mistakes. Realizing this ahead of time makes it easier to handle your disappointment when you lose a game.

Imagine if you had unrealistic expectations: if you truly believed that you should be able to figure out how to play on your own, if you thought instruction and practice were unimportant, if you expected yourself to play exceptionally well every dayand that theres something wrong with you if you had difficulty. Youd get upset and think, I thought I could play tennis... I guess I was wrong... I cant. At that point, you might abandon playing tennis altogether.

The same principles hold for dieting. You can probably choose a diet plan, start following it right away, and lose some weight. But, at some point, its going to get more difficultand if you dont know what to do, youre likely to get demoralized, give up, and start gaining back weight. This workbook prepares you for those difficult times. It teaches you exactly what to say to yourself and what to do so that this time you will keep losing excess weight and keep down your weight for life.

If youve read The Beck Diet Solution, think of this introduction and chapters 14 of this workbook as an intensive refresher course in the program. Dont skim over these sections. Theres plenty of new material and a weight-loss questionnaire that sheds light on why you have dieting difficulties. If you havent read the original book, I want you to know that its helpful to do so but not essential. Youll still benefit from the ideas, techniques, and daily charts in this interactive companion. As you make your way through this workbook, youre going to learn exciting new weight-loss strategies. No wonder you havent been able to lose weight or to keep it offyou didnt know how. But now you have the opportunity to learn, and Im very glad you decided to join me in this journey.

T he Beck Diet Solution is grounded in the principles of Cognitive Therapy (CT). Cognitive refers to thinking. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, my father, Aaron T. Beck, M.D., developed this form of talk therapy as a result of a number of scientific experiments he conducted. He found that when he helped depressed patients solve their current problems and modify their unrealistic and depressed thoughts, they started to feel better and behave in more helpful ways. Instead of spending years talking about their childhood experiences on the couch, he had patients sit up, set goals for treatment, and learn skills to change their behavior and thinking. Patients got better quickly, often in just 10 to 12 sessions.

Over 400 research studies have shown CT to be effective for a wide range of problems and disorders. A recent study conducted in Sweden demonstrated the effectiveness of CT for weight loss. Researchers reported on the outcome of dieters who participated in a 10-week group CT treatment program and returned for a follow-up 18 months after treatment ended. These dieters initially lost an average of 18 pounds. A year and a half later, on average they had continued to lose several more pounds each. (A different group who did not receive CT actually gained weight during this same period.) These results are truly impressive.